Wednesday, May 16, 2012

A fine collection of Brisbane music from the mid eighties organised by Linda Wallace for this cassette + postcards release.
This has been uploaded on Striped Sunlight before, but posted here again in higher resolution with postcards for your enjoyment.

hi
A friend of mine pointed me to the blog and I was thrilled to
read all the comments about "Queensland in Quarantine, a compilation of
diseased music" and also to see that the tape is available online.
However I wasn't so thrilled to read that it was attributed to 4ZZZ, as
the station had nothing to do with it -- the project was very much my
own baby.

In late 1982 I moved to Brisbane to work as an
announcer and producer at 4ZZZ. Before moving back to Sydney at the
beginning of '84 I decided to make the cassette as a record of the time.
I sold my car to finance it. There were postcards inside the package by
Matt Mawson, (Terry Murphy and John Wilsteed)sic.*, and stickers. Harley Stumm
helped A LOT on the production, as did Mark Loutit (where we mastered
the tape) and Matt did the final visual layout.
*second postcard by Damien Ledwich- chuck..*

I selected the
music that I'd grown to love over that year in Brisbane, and also chose
all audio grabs that went between the tracks. These fragments helped to
situate the music. I worked with Harley on these clips in the Triple Z
studios, sometimes using material from the newsroom (so in these ways
the station indirectly supported the production).

I had 500
packages made and sent them to record stores, radio stations and media
all around Australia. I guess I gave 50 away - to the bands, artists,
helpers and media - but all 450 others eventually sold, over the course
of a year or so, and, as I recall I sort of slowly covered my costs.

I've
downloaded the file and listened to the whole thing again today and I
think it is remarkable that it is still so fresh and alive, and really
brings back the feeling of life in Brisbane in 1983, which is nearly
thirty years ago, before the digital world and the internet.

So
please, download and relax with 'Queensland in Quarantine', perhaps with
a gin and tonic on the verandah, dreaming of the time that was so
intense, creative and vivid.

7
comments:

yes.. made me get up off my arse and post this tonight... as earlier in the day the lord mayor of our fine city and the State Premier of our fine lands engaged 200+ police to end a demonstration..200 + police??? WTF.. it musta taken an hour for a roll call... return to the jackboot brigade... sad days..Would have been more timely if rapidgator hadnt shut down ...

Was this your copy? Whoever kept it safe all these years, I love the way they kept every little component, even the cute little stickers from the inside of the cassette covers: "We make it grate in the Sunshine State".

These were treasured items in a world where people who liked that music and hated the powers, barely ever saw or heard themselves represented, or had a voice.

And the way that Matt used every little precious bit of printable space, the same. He was just saying if only they had digital full colour printing... the odd choice of colours was probably dictated by getting the job printed with some other job, on the cheap, perhaps a favour from a printer.

It was a different world: pre-facebook, pre-personal computers, pre-laser printing... and before the arts institutions were open to young ratbags... just guitars and portastudios, and the radio...

I wasn't involved in this, except for playing on the Pork track (now THAT was an interesting evening!), and i don't think Terry was either. Looks like the art is all Matt and Damien. I love this package though. It has so much energy, and is a great representation of what ZZZ was like at the time, though with more time to produce. Good on Linda and Harley (and Matt, Mark etc) for making it. JW.

That Striped Sunlight Sound.

Coming to you from Brisbanethe home of the striped sunlightsound, this is a my little placein cyberspace to share themusic of Australiawhich may have passed you by.Mostly rare and out of printalbums from artists that nevermade it into the mainstreamand my recollections concerningthem. If you like somethingplease leave a message in thecomments, if you don't,maybe you'd rather not seeyour music here, or maybe myrecollections are wrong,please leave a message too.If you find any links no longer workplease let me know and I'll fix itI'm on myspace you can find me at myspace.com/stripedsunlightsoundand if you preferfacebook.com/people/Bob